The Professor

XIV

I was dripping with sweat

The room was filled with the sound of us panting

Me and Luca....

Were on the ground wrestling

We've been training for about a week now

The deal was to train every morning for about a month in his secret warehouse

He would teach me defense mechanisms and how to disarm someone

And I wouldn't tell a soul in return. More specifically Matteo's soul

He started off by going over all of my moves verbally

Since I'm a fast learner, I passed all of my quizzes in flying colors

Now this week he is physically demonstrating deadly situations, and it's my job to get out of them

Right now, he has me in a side headlock

He wasn't playing when he said he wouldn't take it easy on me

He is choking the hell out of me

I begin to panic

All of the lessons he gave me just vanished outside of my brain

I try to shake and shimmy out of harms way but his arms just get tighter

For a split second I forget that this is a simulated attack

I get flashbacks of that night

That time I was almost beat to death

Or the time I was jumped by Avery and her clique in the orphanage

All my life I've been timid and run over

...not anymore

I try to take a deep breath and remember what Luca told me

"Push your arm under their neck and roll forward"

As I hear his voice in my head, I act it out

After I put him in a weird position, the rest comes naturally to me

I grab his arm and put it in an arm lock

While doing this I wrap my legs around his neck

Now he can't move

I keep pulling and squeezing until I hear him tap the ground

I jump up and squeal

"I did it!"

I'm still jumping up and down in victory while he's on the floor catching his breath

He lays on his back breathing heavily

"Alright, alright good job. Let's go on break"

He says exhausted but with a proud smile in his face

................

We sit in comfortable silence while eating sandwiches in the kitchen

As I eat, I think of Matteo

He's been acting weird lately

In private he's still his attentive loving self

But when we're in public he acts strangely

He squeezes my hand as we walk through large crowds

He's always looking behind his back

When I ask him if he's ok, he just nods and carries on

I decide to bring it up